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AP • Dabbler duck : Mandarin female


Kodiak

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This strikingly handsome Wood Duck showed up last

year at the nearby marsh. Alone of it's kind and just for

4 days, I had some good luck shooting many cool takes

of him but none of his female!

 

Here is one…

 

C1468%20ED.jpg

 

 

 

This time,  I got a very beautiful Mandarin Duck female,

she too is alone, without her mate, and playing hard to

get but I was not gonna give up on this chance.

 

Apparently landed some hours before, she was trying

to hide under anything that offered shelter. In this case, 

she was staying too close to the cache for me to get a

good horizontal, flat angle to shoot her.

 

For now, I will do with these…

1

A0206%202D.jpg

 

2

A0262%202D.jpg

 

3

A0264%202D.jpg

 

4

C2230%201D.jpg

 

5

C2315%201D.jpg

 

 

 

Have a look, have a good time!

www.kodiakmedia.at

TeamViewer: 668 015 544
Skype: kodiakonline
 
If personal taste is involved,           Light is free,                       Mother Nature provides the light
discussion is pointless.                   capturing it is NOT.               but talent renders the image.
                                                                                                                        (Charlychuck)
 
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These are great Kodiak!

I especially love the first one (without number) and #4.

It would be really interesting getting some insight about how you post process them.

 

Thanks for sharing!

Andrew
-
Win10 x64 AMD Threadripper 1950x, 64GB, 512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD + 2TB, dual GTX 1080ti
Dual Monitor Dell Ultra HD 4k P2715Q 27-Inch

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The lighting is really beautiful.

 

My only talent in this regard was to recognize it…

as Mother Nature lit the scene!

www.kodiakmedia.at

TeamViewer: 668 015 544
Skype: kodiakonline
 
If personal taste is involved,           Light is free,                       Mother Nature provides the light
discussion is pointless.                   capturing it is NOT.               but talent renders the image.
                                                                                                                        (Charlychuck)
 
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These are great Kodiak!

Thanks for sharing!

 

Thanks and welcome for that!

 

I especially love the first one (without number) and #4.

 

 

…the drake, yes! Males have, generally,

more spectacular plumage bird wise.

 

It would be really interesting getting some insight about how you post process them.

 

Still using Capture One v10 as RAW converter for all my

PP and Affinity Photo as pixel editor.

 

I render to the strict quality that was seen. I would never

manipulate a wildlife shot but I do use AP to clean debris

that do not contribute to the visual quality of a take.

www.kodiakmedia.at

TeamViewer: 668 015 544
Skype: kodiakonline
 
If personal taste is involved,           Light is free,                       Mother Nature provides the light
discussion is pointless.                   capturing it is NOT.               but talent renders the image.
                                                                                                                        (Charlychuck)
 
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Pure quality. Love the BGs. 

 

Thank you Charles, glad you like'm!

 

Nature provides the light but talent renders the image :)

 

Brilliant! … may use this quote of yours?

www.kodiakmedia.at

TeamViewer: 668 015 544
Skype: kodiakonline
 
If personal taste is involved,           Light is free,                       Mother Nature provides the light
discussion is pointless.                   capturing it is NOT.               but talent renders the image.
                                                                                                                        (Charlychuck)
 
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Just beautiful! :D

 

Yes, she is!

 

When showing the takes to a student before posting

them, I dropped the word "sexy" in my description!!!

 

These Wood Duck are rather small compared to say a

Mallard Duck… making them ever cuter! …to my eye

anyway!

 

Thanks for the comment! ;)

www.kodiakmedia.at

TeamViewer: 668 015 544
Skype: kodiakonline
 
If personal taste is involved,           Light is free,                       Mother Nature provides the light
discussion is pointless.                   capturing it is NOT.               but talent renders the image.
                                                                                                                        (Charlychuck)
 
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Nice pictures, excellent PP.

 

Marie

What?

I have the honour of your first post!?!?!

Cool and WELCOME!

 

This comment about PP means possibly that you are

literate in this aspect of the workflow… I hope!

 

Thanks for dropping by Marie and welcome again!

www.kodiakmedia.at

TeamViewer: 668 015 544
Skype: kodiakonline
 
If personal taste is involved,           Light is free,                       Mother Nature provides the light
discussion is pointless.                   capturing it is NOT.               but talent renders the image.
                                                                                                                        (Charlychuck)
 
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Hello Kodiak fellow Canadian. Most appropriate are your images of a North American bird, lovely, all of your photos of these amazingly attractive waterfowl. A Canadian friend of mine put me on to Capture One, I started with v7 and now on v9.3. It has made a world of difference to my image results. I am now doing my pixel pushing in AP. I look forward to seeing Affinity products outperform the competition as their business culture is so good.

 

I digress, back to your amazing work and Affinity Photo. Are you able or willing to offer a video tutorial of your workflow? I would be most interested in viewing your process, assuming you can teach an old dog new tricks.

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Thanks for your comment Aeros4

 

Are you able or willing to offer a video tutorial of your workflow? I would be most interested in viewing your process…

 

Here are some important points…

  1. Take good care to capture your subject, recording
    properly all its data within the DR of your sensor.
     
  2. Read the RAW file to fully restitute the recorded
    data with fist correct DRL, and then WB. These two
    steps should reveal most of the quality of your cap-
    ture… and are the base of my cooking.
     
  3. Now, the tricky part!
    One has to restore and render an organic image recor-
    ded by a mineral sensor. This is the seasoning part of
    the "cooking" where tasteful tweaks will do their magic…
    like micro contrast and micro saturation, mid-tones ta-
    ming and others.

My workflow, for studio sessions, location works and wildlife,

aims at the "closest to reality" look of the capture.

 

I hope that helps!

 

DR = Dynamic Range

DRL = Dynamic Range Levels = black and white points setting.

WB = White Balance

www.kodiakmedia.at

TeamViewer: 668 015 544
Skype: kodiakonline
 
If personal taste is involved,           Light is free,                       Mother Nature provides the light
discussion is pointless.                   capturing it is NOT.               but talent renders the image.
                                                                                                                        (Charlychuck)
 
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Beautiful images. Fantastic colours /detail.

 

 

Imagine what it could be using Pantone!

…just joking!

 

Glad you like them! ;)

www.kodiakmedia.at

TeamViewer: 668 015 544
Skype: kodiakonline
 
If personal taste is involved,           Light is free,                       Mother Nature provides the light
discussion is pointless.                   capturing it is NOT.               but talent renders the image.
                                                                                                                        (Charlychuck)
 
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Beautiful images Kodiak. Wood Ducks are one of my favorites...

 

Thanks jmac!

 

The drake was the one I new and now I meet the Mandarin female…

she looks so sweet! I haven't shot the Mandarin drake yet. So at

this point, the Wood Duck female and the Mandarin male are high

on my list too.

 

 

Your images are always so razor sharp. Is this due to high quality equipment, post processing tweaks or a combination of the two? 

 

A combination of the three!

  1. good gear,
  2. fine tuning of all possible combos, and
  3. sinceI never use any form of sharpening in PP,

    impeccable, precise DRL is the better way to go.

www.kodiakmedia.at

TeamViewer: 668 015 544
Skype: kodiakonline
 
If personal taste is involved,           Light is free,                       Mother Nature provides the light
discussion is pointless.                   capturing it is NOT.               but talent renders the image.
                                                                                                                        (Charlychuck)
 
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DRL?

 

DRL = Dynamic Range Levels = black and white points setting.

www.kodiakmedia.at

TeamViewer: 668 015 544
Skype: kodiakonline
 
If personal taste is involved,           Light is free,                       Mother Nature provides the light
discussion is pointless.                   capturing it is NOT.               but talent renders the image.
                                                                                                                        (Charlychuck)
 
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